Historian Dr. Rafael Medoff discovered documents showing that the US
State Department threatened to incite anti-Semitism in 1948 if the the
Zionist leaders proclaimed the State of Israel, a statement released
Thursday asserted.

According to the documents,then undersecretary
of state Robert Lovett told Zionist official Nahum Goldmann that the
Truman administration opposed plans to declare the Jewish state. Lovett
reportedly threatened to release a "White Paper" criticizing Zionists,
which he said would have "grave repercussions" for Jews as anti-Semitism
was mounting.

Medoff found the documents while researching for
his book Herbert Hoover and the Jews: The Origins of the "Jewish Vote"
and Bipartisan Support for Israel.

It is "deeply disturbing that
the State Department would go to such extremes. Threatening to provoke
racial hatred against American citizens should have been beyond the
pale," Medoff said.

According to Medoff, Zionist leaders
dismissed the threat, partly due to the support they received from
leading Republicans, and then US president Harry Truman's concerns that
Jewish voters would give them their support if his administration backed
the Arabs.